Interview - Steve King, Lewes manager

The Lewes manager Steve King will be writing a weekly column for Viva Lewes keeping you in touch with what promises to be an exciting season for the Rooks. We caught up with him on the morning of the QPR friendly to find out about his hopes for the season and his thoughts about Lewes’ performance in 2005/6, in which they finished fourth and won the Sussex Senior Cup.

On last season
“The target for last season was to reach the play-offs and I am happy that we achieved that, even though because of ground regulations we weren’t able to compete in them. Once that news filtered through it had an effect on team morale and we lost the last three games of the season: otherwise I’m confident we would have finished second or third. We had an unbelievable run after Christmas, only losing two games out of twenty-two. After the disappointment of the end of the season we were very eager to win the Sussex Senior Cup against Horsham. It was a tough match – we had a player sent off on the half hour and had to come back from a goal down with ten men against a team which had just won promotion. But we battled hard, and won through. You could see from the celebrations afterwards how much winning the trophy meant to the team.”

On the ground improvements
“The ground improvements being done at the Dripping Pan this season mean that we will be able to move up to the Conference next season if we get the results on the pitch. (Chairman) Martin Elliott has assured us of this, and it’s because of this that I have managed to keep the nucleus of the squad together and been able to build on that.”